Odds: Wednesday - "Election 2," "Brokeback," redux.

By Alison Willmore on 04/05/2006

At Kaiju Shakedown, Grady Hendrix has a great review of Johnny To's "Election 2" (aka, apparently, "Harmony Is A Virtue"), which opened the Hong Kong Film Festival yesterday:

As bleak as an alcoholic clown at a children's birthday party, ELECTION 2, like [star] Louis Koo, holds itself in check until its ending when things, remarkably and unexpectedly, get even more horrible and depressing.

In the New York Times, Caryn James checks out playwright Martin McDonagh's first film, "Six Shooter," which won the Oscar for best live-action short last month, is available for $1.99 on iTunes, and which she calls "eloquent and comic, shaped by a sophisticated cinematic imagination."

The DVD incarnation of "Brokeback Mountain" went on sale yesterday; in the LA Times, Claire Hoffman (who, oof, makes a "quit you" joke in her lede) writes about how Wal-Mart, despite a protest campaign aimed at them by large Christian organization The American Family Association, is carrying the film and proving that the chain is only as red state, values-wise, as its commitment to ravenous economic gain will allow.

"It wasn't even a blockbuster movie, so if Wal-Mart isn't trying to push an agenda, why would they put it at the front door?" said Randy Sharp, director of special projects for the [AFA], which calls itself an organization for "people who are tired of cursing the darkness and who are ready to light a bonfire."

Sharp said Wal-Mart was "trying to help normalize homosexuality in society. But how many copies are they going to have to sell to recruit the losses of customers who they've offended and will no longer shop at Wal-Mart?"

Shove it, Sharp — you can't imagine the realms of the sentimental (or just curious) dying to abscond to the safety of their homes with a low-priced DVD copy of this film. At RogerEbert.com, Jim Emerson writes about how fans at the Ultimate Brokeback Forum have started a campaign of donating copies of the film to libraries:

Our newest campaign (the Missionary Project) is to place as many BBM DVD's in libraries and other places as we possibly can.  We especially want to target rural or smaller libraries which may not have the resources of the larger ones.  We are asking the libraries to label our donations with "Donated by Members of the Ultimate Brokeback Forum at http://davecullen.com/forum which, after viewing, will give those who need it a place for support.  Our message, as always, is a positive one of the beauty of love between two people which cannot be denied.

Checking in on the Caveh Zahedi development from yesterday: Eugene Hernandez at indieWIRE sums the situation up and gets an extremely politic quote from IFC Films head Jonathan Sehring; at Greencine Daily, David Hudson does the same, while in the post comments both Mark Cuban and a fearless Jonathan Marlow weigh in.

Also at Greencine Daily, as well as on his own blog, Jerry Lentz is vodcasting coverage of the 2006 Method Fest.

Finally, because we, at least, really needed it: the Wired News crew gathers their favorite amateur ad imaginings from around the web for "Snakes on a Plane." Can someone make us a t-shirt of this one? Dammit, we deserve a t-shirt.

+ ELECTION 2 REVIEW (Kaiju Shakedown)
+ Martin McDonagh Finds His Inner Thug as Film Director (NY Times)
+ Wal-Mart Sells 'Brokeback' Amid Conservative Protest (LA Times)
+ Making it easier to climb 'Brokeback' (RogerEbert.com)
+ "Sex Addict" Pulled From Landmark Theater; Indie Filmmaker (and IFC Films) Caught in Mark Cuban/Comcast Battle (indieWIRE)
+ Caveh, Comcast and Cuban. (Greencine Daily)
+ Jerry Lentz (Google Video)
+ Snakes on a Plane (Wired News)